Freedom Birds, 2016

This work is in two parts.

A story I once heard at my daughter’s 9th birthday party told by Nomusa Xaba, a storyteller, who shared with us an enchanting narrative on ‘freedom’. It reminded me about the poignancy of imagery. I clearly remember the birds she described, the process of a man trying to destroy them and finally at the end, these birds in defiance, turn golden, flying free and victorious. I felt like a child.

There are these little moments, however, when it becomes easy for us to ‘slip into silence’. The question I ask is, when are we complicit in ‘where’ or ‘what’ we have become?

In a world with so much access for so few, – there are many who go without. In a world that speaks easily about equality, human rights and gender parity; we have dissension, abuse, censure and disharmony. Perhaps we could try our hand at a basic human element: respect. It would mean then that we need not have policies, laws and legislation to guide our actions. However, as long as perceived power is determined by access to resources, there will always be a need to separate, divide, create superiority or inferiority and to substantiate these ideas with ‘facts’ of fantasy. And can the subjugation of anyone be explained? Surely, when all is said and done, we have similar hopes and dreams of being able to live in freedom and reasonable safety and comfort.

My work attempts to present these dichotomies, (these questions) and notions or dynamics of power in an attempt to find answers to our human endeavour…